Shine a Light -- Rolling Stones

I have an interesting relationship with the Stones. I grew up with my parents' record collection, Beatles, Dylan, Johnny Cash. No Stones. I think they were a little too bad boy. Dunno. I remember when they came through NY in the 80s on some of their way over the hill tours, and maybe that made me think less of them. But at some point songs like Sympathy for the Devil, Paint it Black, Wild Horses, etc. caught my ear. I was at a party at the chicken house and they played Hot Rocks, the greatest hits album, and was floored. That said, it's still the only Stones album I own -- which is funny cause normally I despise greatest hits things, I'm much more of a complete-ist than a generalist. But anyway, back to Shine a Light. It got great reviews, which helped to overcome my reticence due to the Stones being in their 60s, so I bought it. It's a surprisingly great movie. Mick annoyed me at first, a lead singer who does nothing but sing bothers me, and he was gyrating about the stage, upstaging the rest of the band in the first song. For that matter he does it throughout the movie, I guess I just got used to it.

Loving Cup was the first song that made me happy I saw the movie. It's a wonderful song. Phish has covered it often, in fact it was a key part of the best set of Phish I ever saw: (Portland, OR, 24 November 1996, set 2) 2001, sparkle, BOWIE, a Day in the Life, YEM, Loving Cup, suzy G + ginseng sullivan, cavern. Nice. Mick's voice is shot, but he dueted with Jack White, so the good voice/shot voice contrast was great.

(Loving Cup)

Doing yoga last night, 3 songs in a row really struck me: Just my Imagination had a great groove to it, Far Away Eyes with Ronnie Wood on pedal steel guitar was a cool little country tune, and then Champagne & Reefer with Buddy Guy was amazing -- there was a point in the song where Buddy Guy was at the mic, had finished one verse and was waiting for the next, and was staring into the camera for about 10 seconds. His eyes were amazing. A cool moment. The song was rocking, too.

The song with Christina Aguilera had a ton of energy, overall the songs with guest artists were all particularly noteworthy. That said, I also really liked the 2 songs that Keith Richards sang, mellow, spare, quietly powerful.

The camera work, particularly the close ups of faces and arms was amazing. These guys have done some serious living. Keith Richards really has earned the lines in his face. His hands also were crazy, huge blood vessels standing on top of sinews and bones. A little creepy maybe, but really cool textures.

Anyway. Highly recommended. (I'm going to have to make some screen grabs, cause I couldn't find many great pics on the web.)

Update: the disc would appear to be copy protected or something, cause when I paused it and did a screengrab --> photoshop the resulting image was jet black. shame.